Guide
Air compressor service cost: what you are actually paying for
Updated
Ask three firms to service the same compressor and you can get three very different numbers. That is not usually one of them overcharging. It is usually three different scopes of work wearing the same word, service.
Why we do not publish an average price
Every figure on this site has to be traceable to something. There is no published, checkable UK dataset of compressed air service prices, so any average we printed would be a guess dressed up as data. Instead we publish the cost drivers, so you can read a quote properly, and a form that gets real engineers to price your actual plant.
The four things that dominate the price
- The machine. Kit cost, oil volume and labour hours scale with motor size and technology. A screw compressor's oil separator is not comparable with a piston machine's filter change.
- The service content. A minor service is filters and oil. A major service adds separator, valve kit, belts or coupling, cooler clean and often oil analysis. Ask for the parts list.
- The air treatment. Dryers, line filters and condensate drains are separate line items. A desiccant dryer's charge change is an occasional but significant cost.
- The site. Travel, out-of-hours working, permits and awkward plant rooms are all real labour, and they are where identical-looking quotes diverge.
What a comparable quote looks like
- Ask per machine, not per site. Make, model, serial, and a price against each. Site totals hide which machine is expensive and why.
- Ask for the parts list, not the tier letter. Service names such as A, B and C or 4,000 and 8,000 hour vary by provider. Compare what is in the box.
- Ask what is excluded. Dryer elements, desiccant, oil disposal, consumables, travel and the statutory examination are the usual exclusions.
- Ask for the labour rate separately. Standard hours, out of hours, and the callout charge. That is what you will actually pay when something breaks.
The cost most quotes leave out
The biggest number in compressed air is rarely the service. It is the electricity. A compressor that is running on to a leaking ring main is paying for air nobody uses, every hour it runs, and a leak survey costs a fraction of a year of that waste. If you are pricing servicing, price a leak survey at the same time, it is the one line on the quote that can pay for the rest.
Separate from all of this, your installation is a pressure system, and the examination under your written scheme is a statutory duty priced as its own job. See the written scheme guide.